


hotel california

by impossible_rat_babies



Category: Greenwarden - Elliot Z.
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29151879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossible_rat_babies/pseuds/impossible_rat_babies
Summary: “You alright?” Bautista gently breaks the quiet.“Jus’ tired...Didn’t know I’d fallen asleep.” Rabbit mumbles and there’s another hum, one of understanding and the comforting sound of tapping of fingers against keyboard. Counting breaths, how each inhale moves them up and back down, heartbeat steady in their ear.
Relationships: tracker/bautista, tracker/m!bautista
Kudos: 1





	hotel california

A haze creeps around the edges of Rabbit’s mind, a steady rise back to consciousness; details escape them, the haze of drowsiness like cotton between their ears and they blink slowly in the dim yellow light. The gibberish hum of a tv turned down low on the edge of their hearing, but they know the sound of the news anywhere--the monotone of a newscaster droning

Turning their head around and they squint, a faint hum of questioning in the back of their throat. They spy the box TV, the automatic subtitles lazily scrolling across the bottom of the grainy screen, half a sentence behind. Florida’s in the midst of another rough storm coming up from the tropics, scenes of preparation moving across the screen and Rabbit imagines that’s what prepping for the apocalypse must look like. 

Idiots.

Rabbit drags their eyes away, sweeping across the heavy gaudy patterned curtains and tacky window valance, the curtains drawn tight--isolating them further in the cocoon of warm dim light.

The computer screen draws them in, blocked by a pair of arms in an out of focus blur, only the blue white light of the screen against their eyes. They eyes narrow as they adjust, words appearing with speed in little fill in the blank text boxes--expense reports. The constant tap of fingers against the keys match the pace, the steady rhythm complimenting deep breaths in the chest pressed against their ear, a faint grunt of displeasure grumbling in his chest. 

Warmth....cradled, held close. Tucked in and held with security behind tense arms.

Rabbit pulls their legs in closer, turning their face away from the light. A concerned hum reverberating their head, the sharp scent of mints and the sound of crunching washing over them. Cinnamon and cardamon, by the smell--must be a special kind.

They idly hum back, nuzzling against Bautista’s chest and they take their own deep breath. Cheap laundry detergent is a smell they’ve grown used to on their own clothes, but it’s funny how they never realized its the same with Bautista

“You alright?” Bautista gently breaks the quiet.

“Jus’ tired...Didn’t know I’d fallen asleep.” Rabbit mumbles and there’s another hum, one of understanding and the comforting sound of tapping of fingers against keyboard. Counting breaths, how each inhale moves them up and back down, heartbeat steady in their ear.

“I didn’t know it either until I looked.” He mumbles back and Rabbit feels it more than hears it, the rumble in his chest.

Both of them had been working late, just the table lamp on and the same station cycling through it’s nightly repertoire. A touch of background noise to further occupy their mind, distract and evade. They were sitting beside him and nodded off when Bautista turned quiet in the lull of a bickering conversation. It had been a long day. Nerves frayed from tracking all day, the usual deep ache settling between their shoulders and in their thighs, muscles tensing despite how they kept pressing their thumbs against the pressure points to relax. Relaxing...Rabbit can’t remember the last time that happened. At least until now.

How they ended up sandwiched between his arms and computer in his lap is a mystery.

“Why am I here...?” Rabbit ponders and Bautista stops crunching away at another mint for a moment. “Sitting in your lap, I mean...jerk.” They mumble for clarification, yawning.

Bautista is quiet, fingers drumming against the keys and he finishes chewing on the mint. Long enough for Rabbit to wonder if he’s blowing them off, or worse: thinking this is a terrible idea and wondering how quickly he could dump them out of his lap and save their precious computer from flailing arms or legs. (Wouldn’t be the first time some poor electronic of theirs had suffered from a flailing arm or leg--but that had been an accident, they swore!)

Funny how their mind travels to that memory, or worse yet wondering if he’s wondering if this is a terrible idea. There’s been too much of that lately: the wondering about wondering about him. Or the wondering about his wonder of what he thinks about them. Too much wondering for one brain, gross.

“Do you hate it?” He asks instead and Rabbit pauses, chewing the inside of their cheek and the callous on their thumb. There’s a scar inside their mouth, matching the imprints of their molars and the callous from the flickering of lighters. One remembered well, the other forgotten. They don’t remember a lot of things, or choose not to remember. 

Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which. Most of the time they don’t want to know the difference.

But he asked them a question and he’s quiet, just him breathing and it’s steady like the thump thump thump of his heartbeat against their ear.

“No...” 

Rabbit admits in a timid voice, finding a loose thread on his shirt and they pull it, wrapping it around their thumb over and over until it breaks. Words stuck in their lungs, in their stomach—more things they could say--unraveling the string turning their fingertip white. Things they should say. That this feels nice, that they like being held, that he’s far too good to be holding them like this. 

He shouldn’t let him hold them like this, the more he lets them sit the more they’ll stain him—cover him in briny, rough rotting ichor that won’t ever wash out. Carrion sloughing off their decrepit body to fall into the ocean in visceral chunks, and if all the bad could show up on their skin they would be rip for the tearing from vulture’s beaks like prometheus bound to a rock.

“Rabbit?” 

Quietly their name, coming from Bautista’s lips like he’s unsure of how it feels to shape their name with his lips, how the word that belongs to them tastes in his mouth.

Sharp scent of mints, cinnamon burning their lungs as they take another deep breath. The faint crunch and the steady up and down as Bautista breathes. Just one hand tapping away the keys, the other tucked back, held as an offering. palm up, shiny scars melding into the worn lines and crevices of callouses on his palm. Callouses from gripping the stock of a rifle, the hold on the grip of a pistol--an old flaking callous on the outside of his thumb from the flick of a lighter.

Rabbit always thought of him as more of a matchbox sort of man.

He doesn’t move despite their hesitance, eyes fixed on the computer screen even when Rabbit cranes their neck to look. They don’t look long, averting their eyes back to the TV and they slowly, achingly reach out. Pressing their palm to his, fingers slipping together and it’s a strange fit—his hands are much larger, less slim than Rabbit’s own stick thin fingers and their whole hand almost fits in his palm.

He doesn’t protest, nor shies away as Rabbit pulls his hand close, tucking it beside their chest--an idle act of vulnerability tucked in the narrow black negative spaces of their silhouette. Their thumb brushes against and counts the scars criss-crossing the backs of his hands. Tracing over the hills and pits of tendons flexing under their touch, across knuckles blemished and bruised.

Rabbit lets out another deep breath and lets the steady back to back news reports lull them back down to the same drowsy haze as before. Head lolling against the slow up and down of Bautista breathing, almost feeling the brush of his thumb across their own hand. Silently wondering what he’s finding on their hands--and almost not wondering why they’re wondering so hard.

Almost.


End file.
